John Fielden - Founder member of the Todmorden Unitarian Society, a religious group active in the social reform movement. Funded the building of the Unitarian Chapel and established and taught at the Unitarian School in the village. Includes excerpts from his writings. (1784-1849)
Edward Pease - Member of the Society of Friends that supported the Anti-Slavery movement.
Joseph Gurney - Minister for the Society of Friends. Played an active role in the prison reform movement and joined in the struggle against anti-slave trade. Wrote several books on religion and morality including: Essays on the Evidence, Doctrines and Practical Operation of Christianity, The Moral Character of Jesus Christ, and Religion and the New Testament. (1788-1847)
John Cleave - Worked with Henry Hetherington in the Civil and Religious Association. Started newspaper and campaigned for political reform. (1790-1847)
Edward Baines - Explains how this journalist was opposed to factory legislation and wrote a book attacking those who had campaigned against child labour.
Archibald Prentice - Outlines the career of one of the journalists who reported on the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, including his lifelong advocacy of parliamentary reform, religious tolerance and free trade.
John Edward Taylor - Unitarian minister in Ilminster but became a Quaker and opened a school in Bristol. Advocate of parliamentary reform. (1791-1844)
Nonconformists - Refers to Protestants who were not members of the Church of England. Included Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists, Quakers, Baptists, Unitarians, Congregationalists, and members of the Salvation Army.
Jessie Boot - Devout Methodist who was deeply concerned about poverty. Involved in charity work and gave an estimated over £2 million to the people of Nottingham. (1850-1931)
Charles Harrod - Outlines the life of this grocer who went on to establish the famous London department store.
Arthur Liberty - Outlines the career of this draper's son who established the stores through which his name became associated with particular fabrics and style.
Joseph Rowntree - Served on the committee responsible for two Quaker schools in York and taught in an Adult School on Sunday. Long time active member of the Temperance Society and wrote several books and pamphlets on the subject. (1834-1925)
George Cadbury - In addition to founding the chocolate company, this social reformer and pacifist introduced a range of benefits and services for his workers and donated much of his wealth to charitable causes.
Josiah Wedgwood - Unitarian and political reformer and also concerned with social reform. Helped to form the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. (1730-1795)
Thomas Cook - Joined the Temperance Society, campaigned against the consumption of alcohol and published Baptist and Temperance pamphlets. Started his own business running rail excursions, which later included worldwide travel. (1808-1892)
Cyrus Clark - A Quaker and member of the Temperance Society who founded an international shoe-making business.
George Fox - Explains how he formed the Society of Friends and subsequently founded the American Quaker Colony of Pennsylvania.
John Wesley - Leader of the Methodist Church. Traveled through England and preached in poor neighborhoods. Wrote collections of psalms, hymns and sermons. He also founded and edited the Methodist Magazine. (1703-1791)
William Booth - Founded the Whitechapel Christian Mission in London's East End to help feed and house the poor. The mission was reorganized in 1878 along military lines, with the preachers known as officers and Booth as the general. Became known as the Salvation Army. (1829-1912)
Nathan Adler - Born in Hanover, Germany. Chief rabbi of Oldenburg in 1829 and of Hanover in 1830. Moved to England and was appointed as rabbi of the united congregations of the British Empire. (1803-1890)
Charles Haddon Spurgeon - Outlines the life of this Baptist who became a well-known preacher and author in the mid-nineteenth century.
Frederick Denison Maurice - Explains his belief that politics and religion are inseparable, and how he later joined with Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes to form the Christian Socialist movement.
John Clifford - Entered the Midland Baptist College at Leicester and became the minister at the Praed Street Baptist Church in London. Emerged as the leader of the Baptist Church in England. Supported disestablishment of the Church of England. (1836-1923)
Hugh Bourne - Primitive Baptist preacher and built his first chapel in 1811. Worked as a missionary in Scotland, Ireland and the USA and wrote History of the Primitive Methodists. (1752-1852)
Church of England - Explains how this church was the principal religious organisation in Britain in the nineteenth century.
Church of Scotland - Explains how this was the only ecclesiastical body established by law in that country.
Roman Catholic Church - Part of the Christian Church ruled by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope). In the early Church the papacy exercised authority over all Christians. Includes brief summary of the church in England through the 19th century.
Wesleyan Methodists - Led by John Wesley, who built first Methodist chapel in Bristol in 1739. Members were active in the campaign for religious emancipation. Victories included the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, the voluntarization of the church rate, and the Universities Tests Act which opened Oxford and Cambridge to non-Anglicans.
Society of Friends - Group formed by George Fox and originally known as the Friends of Truth. Central dogma was that of the inner light, communicated directly to the individual soul by Christ. Eventually became known as Quakers.
Salvation Army - Organized in 1865 by William Booth, a Methodist preacher and originally called the Christian Mission. Fed and housed the poor. Reorganized in 1878 along military lines, with the preachers known as officers and Booth as the general. Gave women equal responsibility with men for preaching and welfare work.
Primitive Methodists - Led by Hugh Bourne, after he was expelled from the Methodist movement in 1808. Membership continued to grow and by 1875 had reached 165,410. Unlike the Wesleyan Methodists, encouraged women evangelists.
Unitarian Society - Established in 1791. Very active in the movements for factory reform, public health, prison reform, temperance, women's rights and the abolition of slavery in the 19th century.
Christian Socialism - Describes the development of the belief that profit sharing would improve the status of the working classes and produce a just, Christian society.
Evangelical Movement - Describes its gradual incorporation into the Anglican Church, and its association with the Anti-Slavery movement and the Temperance Society.
Baptists - Outlines the development of this church from 1609 to the beginning of the twentieth century.
Jewish Community - With passage of Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, members did not possess full civil and political rights. Barred from the House of Commons and House of Lords. Gives brief details about several of their leaders.
Richard Price - Wrote the Review of the Principal Questions of Morals. Stated that individual conscience and reason should be used when making moral choices. He also rejected the traditional Christian ideas of original sin and eternal punishment. (1723-1791)
Congregationalists - This group believed that each congregation had the right and duty to make decisions independent of any higher authority, and shared the outlook of the evangelical movement.
Joseph Priestley - Presbyterian minister, scientist and metaphysician. Wrote several books on Unitarianism and established the first Unitarian Church in America. (1733-1804)
Thomas Fyshe Palmer - Helped form Unitarian groups and played an active role in the campaign in Scotland for religious toleration. He also wrote and published pamphlets on his religious views. (1747-1802)
John Cam Hobhouse - Staunch Unitarian and was a strong supporter of religious freedom. Attended the Unitarian grammar school in Bristol and Westminster School. Elected to the House of Commons and became the leading advocate of parliamentary reform and factory legislation. (1786-1859)
James Martineau - Ordained in the Unitarian ministry and served as a minister in Dublin and Liverpool. Became a leading religious philosopher after the publication of Endeavours After the Christian Life. (1805-1900)
Harriet Martineau - Follows the career of this journalist and author who wrote in favour of women's rights and education. Includes a list of her published works.
William Gaskell - Preacher for the British and Foreign Unitarian Association and in 1876 became principal of the Unitarian Missionary Board. Wrote several pamphlets and hymns. (1805-1884)
Florence Nightingale - Details of the career of this pioneering nurse who campaigned for improved conditions in military hospitals in Britain and abroad.
Edwin Chadwick - Outlines the career of this nineteenth century lawyer who campaigned for public health and published a report showing that disease was directly related to living conditions.
Charles Booth - Details the efforts of this early socialist to investigate the incidence of pauperism in London, and how he subsequently proposed the Old Age Pension.
Elizabeth Fry - Details her lifelong public campaign to improve conditions in prisons in the early nineteenth century.
Joseph Lancaster - Was a member of the Society of Friends. Opened a small school and introduced the monitorial system. As a Quaker he was unwilling to inflict physical pain on his pupils. In 1803 he published his first pamphlet, Improvements in Education, which explained the teaching methods that he used at the school. (1778-1838)
Thomas Fowell Buxton - Member of the Society of Friends and became involved in the Quaker campaign for social reform. Elected to the House of Commons and worked for changes in the criminal law, prison reform and the abolition of the slave trade. (1786-1845)
Elizabeth Heyrick - Describes the life of a social reformer in the early eighteenth century, including a list of the causes she supported, such as the anti-slavery movement.
Mary Lloyd - Was a traveling minister for the Society of Friends, an active member of the Temperance Society. Set up a Provident Society to encourage the poor to save for the future. (1795-1865)
Joseph Pease - Became Britain's first Quaker MP when he was elected to represent South Durham. Refused to take the Church of England oath and was allowed to affirm. (1799-1872)
Anne Knight - Describes her involvement in the Quaker movement and its attempts to end slavery in the United Kingdom in 1830.
John Bright - Quaker, who was opposed to the aggressive foreign policy of Lord Palmerston and campaigned against the Crimean War. He was also totally opposed to slavery and a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. (1811-1889)
Thomas Hughes - Novelist, reformist and jurist. Helped form the Christian Socialist movement. Author of Tom Brown's Schooldays. Includes short biography and photo. (1822-1896)
James Keir Hardie - Raised as an atheist, but converted to Christianity in 1897. Lay preacher for the Evangelical Union Church and also active in the Temperance Society. (1856-1915)
Stewart Headlam - Ordained and appointed curate of St. John's Church in Drury Lane. Wrote the Fabian pamphlet Christian Socialism, where he declared that his main objective was not to convert socialists to Christianity, but to make socialists out of Christians.
Tom Mann - Considered joining the Nonconformist and Quaker groups before becoming a teacher at the local Anglican Sunday School. Member of the Fabian Society and the Battersea branch of the Social Democratic Federation. Leading trade unionist and advocated the eight-hour day. (1856-1941)
Margaret McMillan - Active with her sister, Rachel, in Christian Socialist meetings, the Fabian Society and the Labour Church. (1860-1931)
George Lansbury - Outlines the career of this social reformer who campaigned against poverty and for women's suffrage. A lifelong pacifist, he also defended conscientious objectors during World War I.
Rachel McMillan - Active participant in Christian Socialist meetings, the Fabian Society and the Labour Church. (1859-1917)
Katharine Glasier - A Christian Socialist who once said that to her, "socialism was the economic expression of Christianity". Member of the Society of Friends. (1867-1950)
Philip Snowden - Strict Methodist who joined the Temperance Society. Wrote a great deal about his views on Christian Socialism, the Temperance Movement and economics issues in The Socialist's Budget, Old Age Pensions, Socialism and the Drink Question, Socialism and Teetotalism and the Living Wage. (1864-1937)
Donald Soper - Describes his lifelong campaign against capitalism, the arms trade, blood sports, child labor and inadequate state help for the poor.
John Howard - Devout Congregationalist. Accepted the post to become High Sheriff of Bedford as he saw it as a way to serve God. (1726-1790)
William Wilberforce - Former Methodist who became converted to Evangelical Christianity. Joined the Clapham Set, a group of evangelical members of the Anglican Church, centered around John Venn, rector of Clapham Church in London. (1759-1833)
Granville Sharp - Explains how he published anti-slavery pamphlets in the late eighteenth century, and subsequently founded the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
Thomas Barnardo - Converted to Evangelical Christianity in 1862. Involved in missionary work. Addressed the problems of homeless children and established fifty orphanages. Was also active in the Temperance Society. (1845-1905)
Catherine Booth - Describes the life of one of the founders of the Salvation Army and a lifelong campaigner for women's rights and social justice.
Henry Scott Holland - Describes his career from canon at St. Paul's Cathedral to Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, including details of his published works.
Joseph Rayner Stephens - Preacher and missionary. Ordained as a Methodist minister. Appointed minister of the Wesleyan Church in Cheltenham but in 1834 was expelled from his post for advocating the separation of church and state. Includes excerpts from newspaper articles. (1805-1879)
Edward Steer - Details the career of this Nonconformist who founded a newspaper in East Grinstead and campaigned for improved workhouse conditions, a public park and street lighting.
William Stead - Strict Puritan who favoured social reform. Editor of the Northern Echo, the most influential voice of Nonconformity in the North of England. Advocated old age pensions and supported the charity work of the Salvation Army. (1849-1912)
Anti-Slavery Society - Formed in 1787 and comprised initially of Anglicans and Quakers, it was disbanded after the Abolition of Slavery Act was passed in 1833.
British and Foreign Bible Society - Outlines how this group produced biblical texts in 700 languages and dialects and distributed copies of the Bible worldwide.
Religious Tract Society - Founded in 1799 for the publication and dissemination of Christian literature.
Catholic Emancipation - Presents details of attempts made to obtain full political and civil liberties for British and Irish Roman Catholics.
Missionary Societies - Established at the beginning of the 18th century. Includes brief history.
Clapham Sect - This Anglican Evangelical group included two of the leading figures against the slave-trade.
Band of Hope - Describes the establishment of this temperance organisation for working-class children in the mid-nineteenth century.
Temperance Society - Formed in 1835 and soon advocated teetotalism. One important figure in the movement was the Catholic priest, Theobald Matthew, who persuaded thousands of people in Ireland to sign the pledge. Quakers, members of the Salvation Army and nonconformists were also active participants.
Labour Church - Founded by John Trevor, a former Unitarian minister in 1891. The normal service was Hymn, Reading, Prayer, Choir, Notices and Collection, Hymn, Address, Hymn, and Benediction. Most were involved in charity work. Ceased to exist by World War I.
White Slave Trade - Term first used in the 1830s and referred to female prostitution.
Age of Consent - Describes how this was gradually raised from twelve to sixteen through the efforts of campaigners against slavery and prostitution in England.
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